Brian Sutter's heart is forever singing the Blues.
But the coach of the Innisfail Eagles is not blue by any stretch. In fact, you just might catch him today whistling When the Saints Go Marching In, the original hockey battle song of the St. Louis Blues, the miracle squad that was dead last in the NHL in early January but today is in the Stanley Cup finals.
"You wouldn't believe the endless phone calls I have got, the messages from all over, from New York to Toronto. I bet you today I got 15 alone," said Sutter from his ranch near Sylvan Lake. "It means a lot to me what's going on down there."
Sutter was a St. Louis Blues winger from 1976 to 1988, a period when the franchise struggled so badly it nearly packed up and headed to Saskatchewan.
"I could write a book on the things we did to help keep the team there," said Sutter. "Years and years they owed you money. You kept your mouth shut. You wanted to see hockey stay in St. Louis. That is why it is really special to see what is going on in the city because that city has gone through a lot."
Sutter was the team's captain, the youngest in NHL history, for the last nine years of his career. Along the way he scored 303 goals and added 333 assists in an injury-shortened career. He immediately became head coach and won the Jack Adams Award in 1991 as the NHL's best. Although he's not been officially part of the team since 1992, he will forever be the heart and soul of the storied franchise.
Sutter and his wife Judy were invited to come down for the sixth game of the finals but he's declining, perhaps not wanting to take any attention away from the city's current hockey mad excitement.
"I don't need that. I am not somebody who needs his name or picture in the paper," said Sutter, who quickly turned his attention to the Monday Night Miracle of Game 6 of the 1986 Stanley Cup semifinal series when the Blues miraculously came from behind to beat the Calgary Flames, a moment considered one of the greatest in team history.
Brian Sutter was the captain. Unfortunately for the Blues Calgary went on to Game 7 and on to the Stanley Cup finals. It was the closest the Blues ever got to hockey's Big Show since 1970 when they were swept by the Boston Bruins.
The Blues now have a chance to avenge that loss. If they do, the spoils of that miracle should rightly be shared with Sutter.
– Johnnie Bachusky is the editor of the Innisfail Province, a Great West newspaper
